I just had an interesting exchange with a friend who is heading down to the San Juan River soon. He told me about how he was planning to fish a tandem rig with the river’s namesake pattern (the San Juan Worm) and a beadhead dropper. I relayed the story of how when I fished the San Juan years ago, everyone told me how I absolutely had to fish San Juan Worms. Literally everyone. So before the trip, I tied about three dozen of them in various colors ranging from the standard crimson red, to the more “earthwormy” browns and pinks–and about every shade in between. As of today, I still have all of those worms untouched and perfectly preserved in the museum of their dedicated fly box because I ended up catching all of my fish on dry flies. It just goes to show you that you can only trust local advice so far and that at some level, it’s better to trust your own judgement in fly selection (even on unfamiliar waters).
Aside from reaffirming the need to trust my own instinct, it got me thinking about why people fish multiple flies and if they’re really more effective than fishing just one fly. When I lived back east, I never fished more than one fly. The rule was that you either saw fish rising and tied on one dry fly to match the hatch or you didn’t see any fish rising and you tied on one nymph with a strike indicator. It was very focused. But when I moved out west, it seemed like almost everyone was fishing a dry fly with a nymph behind it. Probably the most popular combo I saw was a hopper with something like a Copper John dropper. The logic seemed to be that two flies are better than one. After all, doesn’t that increase your chances of catching more fish? I argue that it might, but probably doesn’t. And it definitely doesn’t catch more fish the way I want to catch fish.
I never fish a tandem rig and catch just as many fish (and sometimes more) that my fishing companions who are using a dropper. So I’m a little skeptical that fishing more than one fly really increases your chances of catching fish. Plus, fishing multiple flies has some clear disadvantages.
You can’t fish two flies as effectively as you can fish one
The times I’ve used tandem rigs or casts (and by “casts”, I don’t mean “casting”, I mean having three or more flies on the end of my line), I’ve almost always caught the fish on the point fly (the one at the very end). Why? Maybe because that’s where the tippet is the least conspicuous. Even the finest tippet is visible to fish with the sun glaring off the tippet between two or three flies looks unnatural to fish. At least with a single fly, you have a chance of presenting without a parade of tippet between your flies signaling that they’re impostors.
Not only that, but depending on if you’re imparting action to the fly or not, different fly patterns act differently in the water. You have to match them and that doesn’t really work if you’re using different patterns. You can’t really dead drift a hopper and at the same time give action to a caddis pupa. Of course, you could pair them up and tie on an adult caddis with a pupa dropper. That might work. But why bother? You’re still not going to be able to get either fly to behave exactly as you want it to.
And then there’s the fact that multiple flies can create unwanted drag on each other. A nymph near the bottom is flowing at a slower rate than the dry fly on the surface because of the friction on the stream bed. Thus, you can’t really get them to both be in a perfect dead drift at the same time. They’re in different speeds of water. So in my view, it’s better to fish one or the other without them competing against each other.
You get more Tangles
Anyone who says they don’t get more tangles with multiple flies is either a magician or a lier. You just do. It’s the nature of the beast. Some are willing to put up with it. I’m not one of those people. I’d much rather spend more time with my fly in the water than untangling monofilament spaghetti.
You run the risk of foul hooking more fish
I’ve foul hooked too many fish with a tandem rig. This often happens when a fish takes one fly, and then is snagged by another fly in either the initial hookset of the subsequent chaos of the fight. Sometimes, it’s just a superficial snag in the scales, but other times, it’s in the eye or gill. There’s also the possibility of hooking two fish at the same time which will probably result in a horrible tangle, and two beat up fish. Since I release all of my fish, one hook to remove is much easier than two and not only reduces injury, but means I’ll be able to get the fish back to the water faster–both increasing the fish’s chance of survival.
Fishing is not a numbers game
Well, it may be for some, but not for me (anymore). Casts of flies seem like trotlines to me–where you’re just trying to increase your chances and catch as many fish as possible. That’s not why I go fishing and to me, fishing multiple flies almost seems like cheating. I’m out there for the challenge and feel more of a sense of accomplishment when I catch a fish on the one fly I’ve chosen rather than throwing a catch-all smorgasbord.
So while they say that “two heads are better than one”, I say in fly fishing, one fly is better than two. You just can’t present multiple flies as well as you can one when you’re fully focused on it. I for one, would rather present one fly well than two flies poorly.
Soooooooo many tangles! And this morning, I caught 4 rainbows dead drifting an Ishigaki Kebari, guy next to me actually was fishing a tandem rig(convienantly enough) and I think he caught two fish. Lost one because his dropper fly caught a tree limb too. May have had a lot to do with having no line on the water versus having a ton of floating line and tippet on the water though.
Jason,
I’ll use a tandem setup every once in a while, but not often. I usually will do this either on big water or if I am Euro nymphing. I agree with most of your suppositions but I find that on occasion two flies work better than one. A common setup on large water for me would be a #6 Killer Bug (weighted) as the dropper fly, and a small, #14-18 beadhead as the tail fly. I don’t fish more than two flies ever.
I keep the tangles to a minimum by using a dropper line that is at least 3 sizes larger than my tippet. For example: tippet 5X, then dropper line will be 1X or 0X. I also keep then dropper short, no longer than 2.5 inches, but more like 2 inches. To reduce snagging the fish the length from the dropper to the tail fly should be 1.5 times the length of the average fish you’re likely to catch. These are well known rules in the competition fly fishing tours that keep the problems you pointed out to a minimum.
Still, I agree that you will not be able to control 2 flies as well as one, but I don’t try to. When I am using two flies I do not fish tenkara-style; as you pointed out you can’t do that effectively. Droppers only on large waters (allowing for wide open casting loops and no need for precise casting) or when Euro/Czech nyphing (no room to cast, just working fast water with a short vertical line). These are not tenkara.
-Tom
Good points Tom and good tips on avoiding tangles. I don’t think I’ve ever really encountered a situation where I was not catching fish and thought that fishing more than one fly would make a difference. I suppose if you had multiple flies at different levels it could help determine at which depth in the water column to fish. But it seems to me you could accomplish the same thing with a single fly by just fishing it at different depths to figure it out.
As an actual magician I can say first hand that there is no free pass on tangles based on my choice of occupation. The thought of tandem set up on a Tenkara is not even a consideration for me. If I knew how to avoid tangles in the line I would share the secret.
A very large topic to go into properly (and much better done on stream), but I would say there is something of a fork in the road with fishing sub-surface – with one route leading to using a single fly and either sutebari (to bring fish up)or seeking down-welling currents to achieve depth for a fish unwilling to move out of its deep lie. The other fork relies on quickly hitting the eye-level depth of the fish with weighted flies.
Both potentially highly skillful endeavours; but challenges that are chosen separately (of course there are lots of transferable skills between both).
To keep this focussed, the one big thing that I would say when people use the “duo” or “trio” family of rigs (hopper-dropper in US or New Zealand style in some parts of the world – although this can also refer to two sub-surface patterns joined together by tying the mono off the bend of the pattern higher up theleader…) – 95% of them make the mistake of fishing line and leader on the water. This negates most of the advantages of the method (that light level-line tenkara aficionados will know very well). The big difference when you put a dry above a nymph is the ability to get that dry and nymph to travel in a drift dead parallel to the river bank/flow even when reaching right across the stream. With French nymphing and pure tenkara; you have to move your feet in relation to the current to achieve the same thing – especially if the pockets you are fishing are small relative to the surrounding fast torrential flow.
Similarly, if you are fishing two or three sub-surface nymphs (e.g. french nymphing or even short-line styles like czech and polish nymphing) part of the skill is in being able to design a team of flies that works together to create something that is greater than the sum of its parts. This is true both in terms of how each member of the team of flies influences the behaviour of the other flies – as well as the different colour combinations represented. Two examples: fish might only be interested in size 20 nymphs, and they might be “nailed onto” the river bed in deep, fast flow. One solution is to use an extremely heavy point fly (that is too big to catch many fish) and then a much smaller, unweighted dropper fly.
For an example with colour, your heaviest (point) fly and the one closest to it might have to be drab to avoid spooking fish (particularly the fickle European grayling) in cold, clear water. However, the odd unusually aggressive fish might totally ignore the drab flies. The good news is, when they are in this mood they will come a long way up in the water column to attack a bright fly (e.g. a pink bodied/pearl flash shellback scud) fished on the top dropper that is far enough above the two drab flies to not spook the fish that are susceptible to the drab flies.
As with single fly tenkara fishing, there are lifetimes’ worth of experience and knowledge in those different disciplines (if you ever get the chance to watch the top members of either the Czech or French world rivers fishing teams…you will note an uncanny resemblance to master tenkara anglers approaches as well as be able to see a phenomenal level of skill on display).
I should say – apologies for the essay length reply above! Also I forgot to mention that any effective fishing relies on understanding precisely what you want to achieve and then working back to the setup(s) that will give you the ability to do that. Of two equally effective solutions, the simplest is best 🙂
Paul, no apology necessary. I loved your insights and think you’re right. With an infinite number of possibilities, finding the “right” combination certainly could be a lifetime quest. That just doesn’t appeal to me. Matching g the hatch used to be an interesting challenge to me but it doesn’t appeal to me either. My new challenge is catching fish with just one fly and without changing flies. But who knows how long that will last before I’m on to the next challenge. I think many of us have different goals and challenges we set for ourselves throughout our angling careers that can change over time. And that is one of the things I love about the sport.
I first started flyfishing in the 60’s not for trout but for bluegill. Back then there was not much trout fishing in KY. We would tie on a popping bug with a 12″ dropper with a black gnat on the bottom. We would often catch 2 bluegill at a time which would give you the catching thrill of a lifetime. Later I progressed to fishing for trout but only use one fly which is still an awesome thrill. Either method is a thrill when cathing fish.
Nice article… I also prefer a single fly over the double and triple rigs I’ve encountered over the years… I definitely agree with Paul, “the simplest is best.”
Jason,
95% of the time I fish dries only. Once in a while, if all the action seems subsurface, I will fish a dry/dropper rig, usually an Elk Hair Caddis with a beadhead pheasant tail. Does this increase my catch rate? I don’t really know. Sometimes the trout will take the dropper and sometimes the dry. What I do know is that this setup is a pain in the ass to cast and that diminishes my enjoyment of fishing. After a while, I usually cut the dropper off. Of course, I could just fish a sakasa kebari and be done with it.
Tenkara Ambassador, ah yes, I should have mentioned that in the post. I hate the way droppers cast on tenkara rods. Totally ruins the cadence of the cast for me.
Whether I am fishing wet or dry flies, I almost always fish with only a single fly pattern with two exceptions: one exception being in trying to see what color preference the fish happen to have in fly patterns; and the 2nd exception being in using a heavily weighted pattern to get an unweighted fly pattern deeper in the water. Once the fish have voted on their color preference, I go back to fishing with only a single fly pattern, and I don’t do either of those things very often.
Most of the nymph fishermen I have fished with believe using 3 fly patterns increases their chances of getting a hook up. As Jayson said, it also greatly increases your tangle rate as well. On many, in fact on most, occasions I have caught more fish on a single fly pattern than the people I am fishing with who are using multiple fly patterns are catching and I don’t use indicators at all – they usually are fishing with indicators. This has been with them using Western gear primarily and to a lesser extent Tenkara tackle as well, with me fishing with fixed line rods almost always.
On streams I fish dry flies exclusively, but on lakes I give the fish what they want to eat, which often includes nymphs, larvae, and or pupal insect form imitations, as well as dry fly terrestrial insect pattern imitations. Again, using only a single fly on all of my fixed line rods except when I need to get a fly deeper in the water than Tenkara tackle is designed to accomplish. For all the same reasons that Jayson stated above, I also feel I can control and present a single fly pattern far more effectively than I can present multiple fly patterns. When I have tried fishing more than one fly pattern, better than 90 percent of my fish are also caught on the point fly. And in trying to make a valid color/pattern preference decision, you have to fish both colors in the point fly position to make a correct color preference decision as to which color the fish want the most.
I wouldn’t discourage anybody trying multi-fly rigs, but I like that Jason and some responders caution that using more than one fly at a time comes with more tangles during casting and fish fighting, more foul hooking, and more fly losses to snags – to the point where so much time can be lost that you catch no more fish, or less fish. And then there is irritation.
Apparently Euro Comp fishermen usually use multi-fly rigs. But they usually catch few fish per session and absolutely must put out max effort no matter the attendant problems. I think guides usually rig multi-flies for clients for the same reason and to show they are “trying everything”.
I am another who has experimented with threes and fours and now prefers one; if two, only to try one fly vs another or to add weight, when I am willing to pay the penalty.